


Falsehoods of the Elder Scrolls

by Gojirahkiin



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:19:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9587999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gojirahkiin/pseuds/Gojirahkiin
Summary: These are the stories of a world in which the Dragonborn either never existed, or died shortly before the events of the game, from the dungeon bosses that were never beaten, to the apocalypses that were not prevented. Each chapter can be read separately or in any order unless stated otherwise at the chapter's start.





	1. Prologue

_Each reader sees different reflections through different lenses, and may come away with a very different reading. But at the same time, all of it is true. Even the falsehoods._ Especially _the falsehoods._ – Urag gro-Shub of the College of Winterhold on the Elder Scrolls

In Cyrodiil's Imperial City, though ravaged by war the White Gold Tower still stands, and its Moth Priests still study the Elder Scrolls painstakingly seeking knowledge despite the fact that it will one day permanently blind them.

Lately, these scholars have noticed an odd trend in their studies. For whatever reason the insights granted by the Elder Scrolls are increasingly focused on the province of Skyrim.

The civil war in Skyrim has ended, and according to whispered rumors the Last Dragonborn of prophecy has emerged and vanquished Alduin, the ancient Nords' god of destruction.

It is because of these rumors – largely supported by evidence – that the Moth Priests have been able to determine that these insights reflect possible pasts or futures that have not happened and now never will.

Records of these insights, though valuable in their own way, are always stored together, apart from those considered to have been confirmed and those that remain uncertain.

These are the Falsehoods of the Elder Scrolls…


	2. Beem-ja & Ironbind Barrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ironbind Barrow is where you get the Fiery Soul Trap enchantment. At the end of the dungeon in-game, Beem-ja betrays you. So what would happen if you were never there?

Beem-ja only half listened to Salma prattling on about treasure. It had been difficult concealing his research from her father, and almost as difficult to steer their travels to this long forgotten barrow, but there was no doubting it now. Ironbind Barrow was in fact the tomb of Warlord Gathrik. He could practically taste the power contained in Gathrik's remains, but he was patient. He told Salma to wait. He knew that even together, the two of them were not strong enough to strike down Gathrik's still-walking corpse.

But perhaps he need not wait much longer. He saw a traveler coming up the path. An Orc, he could tell, now that he was a little closer. Low quality armor, a mix of iron and hide, but he was large and strong looking. Yes, he would do nicely.

"Hush Salma, we aren't alone," he hissed.

The Orc looked between them as Salma continued to complain. The stranger asked why they were waiting and Salma asked in turn what he was doing.

"I am looking for a good death," the Orc replied.

"What?" she asked.

Beem-ja smiled inwardly. A death-seeker would make the spell that much more potent, almost as good as a willing sacrifice.

"Malacath has granted me a vision of a glorious death somewhere in Skyrim, and I travel from town to city and cave to ruin seeking it out," he elaborated.

"But why?" Salma asked, her inexperience with cultures outside High Rock showing. "You don't look that old to me. You still look like a strong, capable warrior."

"Indeed. One should find his death while he can still call himself a proper man. We Orc men are not like these Nords and Imperials who carry on until they are grey and feeble and their hair falls out. To cling to something past its usefulness is unseemly, how much more so when that thing is you?"

Salma fell silent, obviously thinking on his words, and Beem-ja seized the opportunity.

"I am not in the habit of asking strangers to risk life and limb, but perhaps you would be willing to join us. We do not know what is inside this tomb and the inhabitants could be formidable."

The Orc's eyes gleamed with a shadow of the berserker rage their race is famous for, and he rushed into the cave, with Salma following close behind. Beem-ja brought up the rear, doing his best to stifle a wicked chuckle.

The first two loops presented little challenge to any of them, only a few Frostbite spiders, and one giant one the Orc insisted on fighting alone.

Beem-ja hoped he didn't get himself killed before he could be sacrificed.

They came to a locked door, and it was Salma who accidentally found the lever by tripping over an ancient adventurer's bones and grabbing it to hold herself upright.

They descended deeper into the dungeon and while there were draugr, few could stand against Salma's enchanted sword, Beem-ja's lightning, and the Orc's warhammer. It got to the point that the evil Argonian began doubting that this was Gathrik's tomb.

An hour later, they came to a second locked door, this one with a helmet lying across a pressure plate directly in front of it.

"Don't rush ahead Salma. This is a trap if I ever saw one."

The Orc glanced at them and the trap contemptiously, before knocking the helmet off with a swing of his warhammer. A moment later, spikes erupted from the floor to impale empty air, and the door opened.

Beem-ja could feel the power radiating from the main chamber and rushed forward, murmuring, "At last, Gathrik awaits us."

"What are you on about?" Salma asked, "Let's just grab whatever treasure there is and let's go."

The three adventurer's entered the main chamber and were greeted by arrows from a group of skeletal archers, as Gathrik himself rose from his throne.

It was a hard fight. The skeletons fell quickly to the mage's lightning, but Warlord Gathrik had clearly earned his name. Salma was disarmed with the power of the thu'um as Gathrik roared, "ZUN HAAL VIK!" The Orc barely held onto his own chosen weapon, but did not get to strike the undead warlord down, his path blocked by the draugr's Frost Atronach.

This left Beem-ja to battle Gathrik himself, a harder task than even he had realized. The undead ruler cast wards and icy spears with surprising ease. After several long minutes this led Beem-ja to realize that while his wards were absorbing Gathrik's ice, the warlord's own wards were absorbing his lightning. He had no idea how to break this stalemate except by war of attrition.

Thankfully, Salma had picked up a bow and some arrows from the skeletons and began peppering him with arrows. Soon after, there was a sound like the fracturing of ice as the Orc defeated the Frost Atronach.

The undead ruler grunted, "Bolag aaz, mal lir!" and summoned another, this time behind Beem-ja. The mage rushed forward to avoid being impaled on its spear-arm. Salma came to help him, blocking a crushing blow from its club-arm, but this was only a distraction. Neither of them noticed Gathrik stop fighting and bellow "FUS RO DAH!"

The blast was enough to break the weakened Atronach, but its true purpose was to blow the Argonian and the Redguard away.

With a cry that signaled his berserker rage, the old Orc leaped into single combat with Warlord Gathrik, who laughed and brought up his ebony shield and axe.

The battle was fierce, with the clangs and thuds of armed combat echoing throughout the barrow. The Orc fought well, but while he was aggressive and strong, he was overmatched. His iron helmet was cracked by a bash of the ebony shield, and the ebony axe-blade had torn into the iron haft of his weapon. His hands now bled just from holding onto the mangled handle.

The draugr overlord loomed over him and pulled back its arm crying, "Aav dilon!"

And then it was struck by a thunderbolt from across the room.

The Orc warrior glared up at the Argonian mage. He had been cheated a glorious death.

"I really should thank you. I knew that the girl would not be strong enough to defeat the warlord. Now, in order to fully absorb Gathrik's power, I require a blood sacrifice. Yours will do nicely. It's probably best if you don't bother fighting back."

The Orc screamed in rage and rushed forward on adrenaline alone – only to be blasted back by a lightning bolt cast with both of the traitor's hands.

Beem-ja felt the power flowing from Gathrik into him – all of his powers – and he began to laugh.

"Beem… what are you doing? What have you done?"

Beem-ja looked toward his former master's daughter, unable to stand, barely even capable of crawling. In lieu of answering her, he decided to test one of the powers he'd gained from Gathrik.

He cast what to an outside observer would appear to be a mere fireball, but when it struck Salma, it tore her soul from her body. The fiery soul-trap was as deadly as its name implied.

Beem-ja came as close to smiling as Argonian facial features would allow. The reign of Warlord Gathrik was long over. The reign of Warlord Beem-ja was about to begin.


	3. Potema & Wolfskull Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the game, you get sent to Wolfskull Cave expecting to clear out bandits or animals. Instead you get necromancers, draugr, and a flashy ritual. With no Dovahkiin, things might progress a bit farther...

Falk Firebeard offered Varnius some comforting words and sent him off, but didn't actually intend to send anyone down to Wolfskull Cave. It just so happened that a Breton mercenary in Orcish armor was passing through looking for work, and when she offered to clear out the cave he offered to compensate her depending on what she found. So Firebeard put it out of his mind, and the mercenary set off for the cave, wondering what she could buy with the bounty from what was probably a few bandits at the worst.

She arrived at the cave and quickly scattered the pair of skeletons guarding the entrance with a blow from her trusty Orcish shield and a blast of a magefire. Skeletons were easy, but boded ill. They only lurked where necromancers were plying their malevolent trade…

She entered the cave and found a cart covered in shovels and pickaxes. At least that explained the skeletons. Somebody dug them up. She dared to hope that this was just a case of someone cracking open an old Nordic tomb – she really hated fighting necromancers.

It was not meant to be. She found a novice wandering through a recently carved hallway and killed him, but not before he sounded the alarm and brought down a couple of apprentices to her location. Surprise, surprise, they immediately raised their fallen comrade as a zombie. _That_ was why she hated necromancers. They always seemed to come in groups, and she always had to kill them twice. Still, after killing the novice a second time, lighting one apprentice on fire, and beheading the third, the mercenary tried to look on the bright side; Firebeard had promised to compensate her depending on what she found. Wiping out a coven of necromancers almost literal spitting distance from a village would be worth a small fortune!

She descended deeper into Wolfskull Cave, idly wondering why the name seemed so familiar. It tugged at her memory, but she hadn't bothered to ask for a history lesson. She entered a door, killed another necromancer and stepped into a room with a deep hole in the ground. A little worried, but confident in the way Nordic ruins always seemed to have circular paths to the entrance, she jumped down.

Immediately she heard the telltale sound of tombs popping open behind her and spun to face a pair of draugr. One of them summoned a Frost Atronach, because of course it did. It was turning into that kind of day.

A few volleys of fireballs took out the Atronach, letting her get close to the draugr. She bashed the caster with her shield and then caved its skull with her axe. Then she blocked a strike from the other one and gave it the same treatment. A part of her wondered why draugr could be killed, given that they weren't alive? She shook such thoughts out of her head and filed it away under the mysteries of necromancy with questions like why conjurers couldn't raise the decapitated, and descended into the entrance below.

Stepping onto the rocky outcrop, her first hint that something was very wrong were the bright blue swirling lights. Experience had taught her that necromancy didn't get so flashy unless something big – and therefore bad – was going on.

Her second hint was the incantation.

"Wolf Queen. Hear our call and awaken. We summon Potema!"

"We summon Potema!"

"Long have you slept the dreamless sleep of death, Potema. No longer. Hear us Wolf Queen! We summon You!"

"We summon Potema!"

Potema, the Wolf Queen!? Now the mercenary remembered why Wolfskull Cave had sounded familiar – it was where Potema had performed a number of her dark rituals. Some of her prized possessions were the books about the Wolf Queen she kept in her knapsack to read when she was caught out far from civilization and had finished clearing an area.

She was well out of her depth here, but there was no option but to go forward. She knew about Potema, and even if she weren't getting paid, she could not allow whatever she was watching to continue.

She regretted needing a torch to see, as it meant she had to put away her shield, but she readied a fireball and pressed on.

Down the dark steps she went and she saw a necromancer, stupidly standing in a puddle of oil. Not one to question her luck, she lit him on fire and watched him burn to death. Maybe the gods wanted her to win today.

She continued, descending down more steps to find a necromancer and a draugr patrolling the area, with no oil around to help her. At least here she was under the bright lights, and so could bring out her shield.

She smashed into the draugr, doing her best to ignore the frost magic the necromancer lobbed at her, and struck down the old dustman. This naturally lead the necromancer to stop attacking her long enough to raise it again, but while that was happening she closed in and decapitated him, causing his newly raised draugr to crumble to ash.

Here the path took a turn upward, through a small tower. The mercenary wondered who in Oblivion would make a tower underground, but then remembered that she was in the former lair of the Wolf Queen of Solitude. She ran up the stairs, backpedaling briefly when the draugr at the top took a swing at her, but then blocked its strikes while circling around it until she could bash it enough to make it fall down the stairs to a second death.

She exited the door and found herself facing a bridge leading to an archway with necromancers and draugr patrolling it. That wouldn't be so bad, except that the draugr were clearly Deathlords. Whatever Falk offered, she was going to demand double and haggle from there.

She ran across the bridge, holding her shield over her head to block the rain of ebony arrows the bonewalker was launching at her. Then she got hit by an ice storm spell. She thanked the gods for her Nord blood and its innate resistance to ice, but it slowed her down and forced her to stop on the bridge and lob fireballs to buy herself some time.

But time was something she didn't have.

"Yes! Yes! Return me to this realm!" cried a powerful voice, one that the mercenary shuddered to realize was the voice of Potema herself.

"As our voices summon you the blood of the innocent binds you Wolf Queen!"

"Summoned with words. Bound by blood."

"What!? What are you doing?! You fools! You cannot bind me to your wills!"

"Summoned with words. Bound by blood."

"You ants don't have the power to bind me!"

She managed to burn another necromancer to death as she heard all this, but she was nearly blown off the bridge by the power of the thu'um as another draugr descended the staircase beyond the arch.

She lost her helmet to the darkness below, revealing long blonde hair. She got up, filled with determination. Potema would not rise again, not while she was alive! She ran forward, knowing that the draugr would have to wait for its ancient lungs to recover before firing off another Shout. It brought up an ebony battleaxe as she approached, but at least it was alone. She could fight it under the arch, happy in the knowledge that the draugr archer would be too stupid to move off its position atop the arch to provide support to its ally.

It was an arduous fight, and some of the money she earned from this would definitely need to go into a new suit of armor, but she finally killed both Deathlords, and ascended the steps up towards the tower.

"Something is wrong. There is an intruder."

It seemed that the leader of the coven had finally noticed her fighting. It had to happen eventually, but she had really been hoping that it wouldn't be until her axe was practically lodged in the leader's chest. Then her heart sank as not one or two, but four necromancers came down to meet her.

She dropped her shield. It was next to useless against magic anyway, and she'd buy a new one, maybe an ebony one after today. With axe in hand and magefire in the other, she charged, lobbing fireballs indiscriminately to force the necromancers to waste their magicka on warding rather than attacking, and to blind them with the explosions.

Icy spikes dug into her orichalcum armor, slowing her movements and allowing her enemies to keep back from her, but the mercenary was relentless, and they could not back away forever.

The first one fell to her axe, dying of multiple wounds to their torso and retreating back. The second made a tactical error and tried to reposition while facing away from her, and caught a fireball in the back. The third was decapitated.

The fourth did something unexpected, blasting her arm with an ice spike and forcing her to drop her axe. Out of magicka and down a weapon, she lunged for him and fell back on humanity's first and oldest weapons: her fists.

She brutally beat him to death against the stairs and ascended, battered, bleeding, but not broken.

She reached the apex of the tower to see an aged woman, her arms outstretched, murmuring an incantation as she tried to bind the spirit of Potema, as that same spirit struggled and screamed in rage.

Sneaking was not the mercenary's forte, but she was nothing if not adaptable. She crept up behind the ritual master and performed what would, in another place and time, be deemed a flawless suplex, slamming her foe's head into the ground.

She fell over, relieved. She had won. The necromancer's had failed, Potema's spirit was… still here?

The spectral blue figure was looming over her.

"Hmph. A Breton. And a commoner as well. But you're healthy and strong. You'll do for now."

Then Potema's spirit reached into her and _pulled_. There was a sound like thunder and a flash of purple light and it occurred to the mercenary's horror that she was being soul-trapped!

"Not to worry little one," the Wolf Queen crooned to the soul in her hand, "I would never let my savior perish so easily. You'll serve me soon enough."

And then the Wolf Queen's soul released the mercenary's, and then stepped into the mercenary's body. That was the last thing she ever knew.

Potema cast a quick healing spell on her new body and stood up. A common Breton was not a body befitting a queen such as herself, but she was alive and more importantly unbound. She could deal with all other problems in due time…


	4. Kornalus & Harmugstahl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Reach (northwest for all of you still in Whiterun) there is a ruined fort with a mad-scientist wizard who is making magical spiders. But spiders aren't common in the Reach, so why there of all places?

Harmugstahl was an unassuming ruin in the Reach, near the border with Haafingar. The Forsworn hadn't claimed it, and there were no rumors of treasure there to attract adventurers, so no one really paid it any attention.

In other words, it was perfect for Kornalus.

His enchanted spiders were coming along nicely. Some had grown truly enormous, and those he applied his alchemy and magic to lived just as often as they died. The real trouble was training them. It was difficult to create either an army or bodyguards when the enchanted spiders looked at him as if he were any other prey item.

While Kornalus was a master of destruction magic, particularly lightning, and of alchemy, his efforts with the frostbite spiders had forced him to create a largely unprecedented field of study: animal psychology.

The problem seemed to be that the spiders associated him with food, but could not make the cognitive leap required to realize that just because he _provided_ food, did not mean that he _was_ food.

Kornalus was wary of increasing their intelligence, so instead he experimented with various combinations of calm and frenzy spells, and calm spells combined with frenzy poisons, but the closest he'd come to success on that front had been an extremely indecisive spider that kept rearing as if to strike or spit venom only to stop at the last second. That one had later been eaten by one of its siblings when it couldn't decide how best to defend itself.

Thus far he'd had to settle for locking his successes into various rooms throughout the old fortress. A good, but unsustainable solution. He was already running out of rooms. The large area just beyond his bedroom was home to three of his largest spiders, and the area near his lab had a caged group of still-hostile test subjects.

A few months into his occupation of the fortress, he had his first incident: one of his previous successes had eaten one of the rare adventurers to enter the place all by itself and become strong enough to break the bars on its room. Obviously, he hadn't expected that, and was forced to cast a calm spell and then gently nudge the thing into another room and lock it.

Only later did he realize he'd locked it in the library. It probably would have been best just to kill that one, but oh well. He'd deal with that later.

The incident did prompt him to fix the lever puzzle. He hated that the damned thing had more than one solution, but he had no time to excavate the floor and walls just to calibrate it, so he'd have to hope that any future adventurer's were just dumb muscle. He also put a couple of his special spiders near Harmugstahl's entrance, so hopefully anyone who entered would come in, make the spiders flare their new cloak spells, and then run out screaming, thus discouraging any future visitors.

The second incident nearly cost him his life, but led to a breakthrough. A desperate vampire entered his lair to escape the sun, saw the spiders, and killed them, but rather than fearing the changes to them, she was intrigued. She crept through the ruined fortress, dodging most of the spiders and easily figuring out the lever puzzle. She would have gotten the drop on Kornalus if not for sheer blind luck; he'd turned around as she stood to run him through, and they fought a prolonged battle in his lab.

His lightning sapped her magicka, but not as quickly as her vampiric spells drained his blood. In desperation, he fled into the room of his giant successes, and the scent of blood drove them into a frenzy. He was able to avoid being bitten, but the vampire, with her slightly heavier armor, was not.

The breakthrough came after his spiders fed on the vampire's blood. Their cloaks before had been weak, but afterwards they became strong, particularly those with a frost cloak. Kornalus knew enough about the alchemical properties of vampire blood to isolate its components and separate out the frost-specific strengthening agent. With that knowledge, he could make all of his spider's cloaks into things to be feared, rather than flashy-but-ineffectual light shows.

Overall, the past few months had gone quite smoothly, and his spiders were spawning enough to compensate for any failures in his experiments.

Kornalus doused the last spider egg in the flame resistance potion and applied the isolated vampiric agent before unlocking his door and going to bed. He fell to sleep easily, secure in the knowledge that all was going well, and that his spiders would keep him safe.

A sound suspiciously like the creaking of an opening door woke him. Groggily, he started getting to his feet and looking towards the top of the stairs.

"What? Who's there?"

"The Dark Brotherhood has come Kornalus…" The voice had a feminine aspect to it, and it sounded close but he could not pinpoint it. He wished he'd learned the Detect Life spell.

"What?! That's impossible! How did you get so far?"

"My dear wizard, did you truly think that mere spiders were enough to stop the will of Sithis? Someone performed the Black Sacrament, which means that our Dread Father now demands your life."

Kornalus cast Ironflesh and Lightning Cloak in quick succession.

"Where are you? Show yourself!"

An arrow pierced his throat at such an angle that it severed both is jugular vein and carotid artery, and as he turned he had just enough time to comprehend that his assassin was a Dunmer wearing the Dark Brotherhood's robes, and then he died...

* * *

"So Gabriella, how was your last contract? Something about an Altmer wizard?" what appeared to be a young girl asked.

"Oh I'm afraid it was dreadfully dull Babette. Even after knowing for months that we were hunting him, all he could come up with were enchanted spiders and a locked door," the dark elf woman replied. "I'm much more interested in your last contract. Something about an orphanage in Riften was it? And surrounded by potential witnesses?"

"Oh yes! It turned out to be very easy, but oh so very amusing if I say so myself…"


	5. Lu'ah Al-Skaven & Ansilvund

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ansilvund has a grieving necromancer planning to use an army of draugr to fight the Empire and the Stormcloaks. This is what could happen if she went unchecked.

From nowhere they spilled out into Eastmarch. Draugr, zombies, skeletons, and the necromancers who commanded them. At first the troops – Stormcloak and Imperial alike – were unsettled but unconcerned. Draugr were slow, clumsy, and brittle, and their weapons were subpar. Both sides of the Civil War came to roughly the same conclusion – an earthquake or avalanche had broken open an old barrow and released the draugr, and a coven of necromancers had taken advantage of the fact. It was a short term inconvenience, and they had more important things to do.

But then the more powerful and more numerous draugr started to emerge. Some bore ebony weaponry, and others could use the thu'um – disarming, freezing, or simply blasting their living foes away. Whole settlements were razed and then raised by the necromancers. Kynesgrove was the first to go, and while the legion of undead stationed there was incinerated by a dragon, it was small comfort to those who'd had family in the town.

But the undead seemed to veer south after that. Darkwater Crossing and Shor's Stone were lost. Annekke Crag-Jumper was the only survivor. She made it to Ivarstead and the residents were able to make the journeys to Whiterun, Falkreath, and Riften to warn of the threat.

Jarl Balfgruuf fortified the eastern border while trying to stay neutral. The Empire turned a blind eye, as the dead were only attacking Stormcloak territory so far, but the Stormcloaks found themselves besieged by the remains of their own ancestors.

Of course, necromancers aren't picky with their corpses. Every son and daughter of Skyrim that fell became part of the enemy's horde, and even animals that fell afoul of the draugr were raised.

The Stormcloaks did thank Talos that the dragons were not part of the dead legion, but they were relatively few and the undead were many. The Battle of Bonestrewn Crest – as the event came to be called – was fairly indicative of what happened when the dragons clashed with the draugr army. The dragon burned and froze entire legions of the dead, but the necromancers continued to send more until even the mighty beast fell before the numberless horde, and those that fell (and could still be salvaged) were simply reanimated once more.

Over the months that followed, the dead legion's numbers continued to swell, raising more Stormcloak and Imperial zombies and breaking open yet more tombs, until Riften fell, and the lead necromancer, a woman by the name of Lu'ah Al-Skaven, declared that both sides of the Civil War would follow.

Now the Empire noticed, but they still did not act. After all, their scouts were reporting that the dead legion was moving towards Windhelm. If Ulfric was killed by someone apart from the Empire, he wouldn't even be turned into a martyr. History would remember him as simply another warlord, if that.

But Ulfric and his army would not go quietly.

The attack on Windhelm was less a siege than an assault. At first the Stormcloaks had charged out of the city to meet the undead head on, Galmar Stonefist leading the charge. The dead legion was pushed back by several rows of low level draugr and zombie civilians, but the more distant rows retaliated swiftly and brutally. Hundreds of unrelenting force Shouts echoed across the field, launching some Stormcloaks all the way into the river that flowed past the city, and those were the lucky ones. The unlucky bulk of the assault force had been blown into a single unruly pile, which was immediately bombarded by necromancer's ice spikes and Deathlords' ebony arrows.

Galmar and his remaining troops made a last stand at the city gates, but their fate was not one to be sung about. They were not slain in battle with powerful draugr, but crushed beneath the weight of the onrushing dead as they pressed against the gates. Ulfric would be spared the sight of his friend and lieutenant as a zombie, if only because bloody paste could not be raised to fight.

Though Stormcloak archers manned the walls, they were quickly either killed outright by superior ebony arrows or blown from their positions to their deaths by the thu'um. A few of them held the gates, trying to hold back the undead tide threatening to drown their city, but it was for nought. Every civilian and draugr from Windhelm to Riften had been raised and was now pressing against the gates: nothing could hold back such an onslaught.

The gates collapsed, torn from their hinges by the weight of the horde, and fell atop the unfortunate few that had tried to hold them, yet those crushed beneath them were lucky in comparison to those within the city.

The Dunmer, forced into service, attempted to plea and bargain for their lives, but were not spared. The other citizens, though supportive of the Stormcloaks, had no fighting ability and were slaughtered wholesale, draugr chopping through doors and other improvised barricades, laughing and taunting the defenders in the old dragon tongue as necromancer's followed to raise the newly dead.

As the doors to the Palace of the Kings were sealed, the voice of Lu'ah Al-Skaven echoed through the silent city.

"Ulfric Stormcloak! It was your pointless war fought for a dead god that caused the death of my husband! If not for your folly the Imperial Legion would never have come to Skyrim, and he would still live! You will be punished for your crimes!"

The Jarl of Windhelm was not moved to any emotion but anger, and bellowed a rebuttal that he knew in his bones the lead necromancer could hear.

"All this death, desecration, and slaughter for one life?! What have you done, but inflicted the same pain a thousandfold for one dead legionnaire!? Skyrim will be free, both of the Empire's tyranny and your corruption necromancer!"

"Enough! A shortsighted fool such as you could never understand my pain. Minions! Destroy this place and all who hide inside it!"

With that command, a hundred unrelenting force shouts were concentrated on the door and it was torn from its hinges. Ulfric was forced to dive off his throne as the power unleashed continued into the room, slamming both doors and the dining table against the seat he'd once occupied.

Though Ulfric could Shout as well, his was one Voice against many. So numerous were the Deathlords that their combined shouting kept him pinned to a wall as he was peppered with arrows and frost magic, ultimately nailing his frozen corpse to the wall as a grim reminder of what it meant to stand against the dead legion.

With the back of the Stormcloak rebellion broken, Lu'ah and her many minions turned their gaze westward, towards the imperial forces…


	6. Valthume - Evil Awakened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hevnoraak was one of the named dragon priests, and he supposedly created a ritual that would strengthen him even further. Sadly, we never see it, but here's one way it could have gone.

It seemed that Valthume had been a cursed place for as long as Nords had lived in Skyrim. Once a temple to the ancient dragons the place was now a tomb where the dead refused to rest, constantly wandering the halls as if waiting for something.

And despite Valdar's best efforts, his spirit was no longer strong enough to stop that something from happening.

Valdar's comrades had locked away the dreaded dragon priest Hevnoraak and bound him, leaving Valdar's spirit behind even as the rest of them went to Sovngarde to keep eternal vigil lest the tyrant return to corrupt the future.

But Hevnoraak had obsessed over his resurrection when he was alive. Seeing a vision of the dragons' defeat and eventual return, the man had performed a terrible ritual in which all the blood was drained from his body and his power imbued in it. The ritual had made his body wither, transforming him into a formidable lich… but where Hevnoraak's change differed from his comrades was that when he rose again he planned to reabsorb his blood and the power contained within, making him mightier in death than he ever had been in life.

Valdar groaned as he stepped out of his mortal remains. As a ghost he ought not to be able to feel pain – if one of the draugr were to "kill" him he might scream in frustration, but not in pain. The fact that he was aching was a sign that Hevnoraak was strengthening and preparing to return. He could not allow that. While he had hoped to wait for a mortal champion strong enough to perform the ritual that would strike down the lich forever, all of those brave enough to make the attempt had failed.

Not every traveler had dared to venture further after Valdar warned them. Sometimes they chose to simply talk to him. Though none of them were loremasters, Valdar learned that much, far too much, had been forgotten in the millennia since he had started his vigil. In his own time Hevnoraak had been able to twist good men – strong men Valdar thought were unbreakable – into evil servants, some of whom served him still. He shuddered to think of what the dragon priest could do in these modern times.

He left the vestibule and ventured into the main chambers of Valthume itself. Passing the sarcophagus containing the waiting evil, Valdar made his way toward door guarded by a lone draugr. He'd known that lad in life; he recognized the beard. He pitied the boy.

The draugr rushed mindlessly at him only to trigger the first trap Hevnoraak had meant for his enemies. A battering ram swung down and struck the undead creature, "killing" it, insofar that it would be some time before it could rise again of its own accord. Shaking his head, Valdar walked through the door.

The ghost encountered another lowly minion and struck it down, descending further into Valthume. He scowled as he saw a shade of Hevnoraak, clearly intended to mislead any mortal aids who came this far. No doubt it led to a particularly cruel trap. Rushing down the stairs he prepared for battle, for the moment he stepped beyond the trap door in the floor, a wight and a deathlord awoke in their thrones at the end of the room.

Their blades _hurt_ him, a sign that Valdar did not find reassuring in the least. Still, he triumphed over them, and after a moment to… catch his breath? That did not make sense, what was going on?

He shook off the thought. No doubt it was more of Hevnoraak's influence. He would have to be more careful going forward.

He entered a winding corridor covered in oil, with multiple lanterns hanging overhead. This was dangerous, but for once, the passage of time aid him. The hall was infested by skeevers, and when Valdar goaded one into attacking him, it stepped on a pressure plate, dropping the lantern and setting the hall ablaze.

Once the flames died down, Valdar pulled the lever beside the hidden passage and ran up the ramp. Another deathlord guarded Hevnoraak's blood.

"FUS RO DAH!"

The problem with being solid enough to attack was being solid enough to be attacked. As he tumbled through the air, Valdar saw the draugr grab the vessel and begin fleeing deeper into the tomb. He pursued the creature down the other pathway, only to be blocked by a scourge and yet another deathlord. Hevnoraak had spared no expense in defending the keys to his resurrection.

Valdar paused again to regain his strength before descending into the catacombs. He was fearless, and yet worried… surely he had not been so frail in life, had he? He was chosen to be the tyrant's eternal jailor for his strength and endurance, so why was he so weak?

He ignored a booby-trapped chest and slew a pair of frostbite spiders, then ascended the nearby stairs and struck down a sleeping draugr before it could awaken. Continuing on, he deliberately trod on a pressure plate to trigger a swinging blade trap that killed another draugr in the hall before him, then pressed on through the winding halls.

A pair of hulking draugr blocked his path and he saw the deathlord that had run off earlier pull a chain to enter the chamber containing the second vessel. As he stabbed the second draugr, he saw both deathlords holding the blood vessels scurrying past, deeper into the catacombs and ran after them. Clearly, they were trying to keep him from simply smashing the jars to deny their master future strength.

He sprinted through the flames of the soul-gem trap he had forgotten about in his haste. They burned his ghostly skin, but he could not stop now.

The spirit of Valdar was pushed to his limits as he fought his way through the next obstacles; two more deathlords, a scourge, a wight, and a hall of spiders. He was certain that the iron claw had been here, but then realized that the two vessel-bearers would have taken it to continue to flee.

The last vessel was already gone, as were all of its draugr guardians. He had expected three to flee, but six… oh no. They weren't merely trying to keep the vessels safe; they were planning to resurrect their master right now!

He ran up and up past every remaining trap but he was too slow. There in the throne room the vessel-bearers stood before the sarcophagus, as one of their comrades sat on the throne and the remaining two knelt and chanted. Lightning arced between the pillars in the throne room, finally striking the sarcophagus and releasing Hevnoraak.

"NO!"

He ran to kill the tyrant, but the three who'd performed the unbinding ritual barred his path.

"You will not hold me any longer, Valdar!"

One by one, the lich took each vessel from the deathlord that bore it, drinking his own blood and then sacrificing its bearer with a spell. With every drink, power seemed to crackle across the dragon priest's body, and he seemed to appear… less decayed.

As he sacrificed the last bearer, Valdar could see that Hevnoraak was no longer merely a lich. His skin was still the telltale grey of a draugr, but it had grown smooth and his flesh had gained muscle mass as its life blood was restored. Though clearly not truly alive, he appeared to have some facsimile of life, as though his existence were straddling the border between life and undeath.

A bolt of chain lightning struck down his remaining servants and forced Valdar to his knees.

"You were a mighty warrior once Valdar, I am glad that it was you who acted as my warden. A lesser spirit would have been leeched of strength long ago."

"What?"

"I was not merely growing stronger as the return of my masters drew near, I was siphoning your power into myself. Even if my servants had failed to resurrect me, I would have soon been strong enough to rise again on my own."

"No…"

"Still, such insolence must be punished. Go to your precious Sovngarde – may your soul be forever lost in the mists of lord Alduin!"

With a lazy flick of his wrist Hevnoraak banished Valdar's spirit, and then he slowly walked out of his old temple. He did not know what had changed in the eons since his imprisonment, but it did not truly matter. His goal was very clear: the time had come to restore the Dragon Cult to its former glory. He wondered how to begin though; should he raise his brothers in arms, those blessed with their own masks, or should he merely enslave the nearest settlement and begin construction of a new temple?


End file.
